Oregon State researchers have potentially discovered a new means of combating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The new class of drug they’ve discovered would potentially target oxidized proteins, a molecule that’s critical to the process these diseases follow. This could, potentially, prevent or slow neurodegenerative illness progression.
These diseases happen when nerve cells lose function and die over time – a struggle that affects countless people worldwide.
It’s estimated that over 6 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, according to the Alzheimer’s Disease Association. Meanwhile, Parkinson’s is known to affect over 1 million Americans, according to the Parkinson’s foundation.
These diseases come with an increased potential to develop as one ages, meaning that the longer people live, the more cases are likely to pop up. And with the ever-lengthening lifespan that we can expect, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences(NIH) says that it’s likely to see a large increase in cases over the next few decades.
Maria Clara Franco, an assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at OSU and co-author of the findings published in Redox Biology, explained a bit about this new drug.
Peroxynitrite is the most powerful oxidant a cell can make. Franco, her collaborators at OSU, the University of Central Florida, and Rollins College found that when peroxynitrite oxidizes Hsp90 – short for heat shock protein 90 – it triggers the activation of “suicide signals” in potentially harmful cells.
The normal function of Hsp90 is to support healthy cellular processes, but oxidation can have profound effects on the three-dimensional structure of a protein such as Hsp90, altering its function, according to Franco.
“By understanding the ways that oxidation modifies the Hsp90 structure, and how the oxidized protein works in the cells, we can look for drugs that bind to the modified structure of Hsp90 and stop its toxic function without affecting the activity of normal Hsp90 in healthy tissues,” she said. “That means such drugs should have minimal to no side effects.”
Alongside Franco in the research were Oregon State undergraduate Asra Noor, as well as University of Central Florida researchers Megan Jandy and Pascal Nelson. Other collaborators at OSU included Carrie Marean-Reardon, Ryan Mehl, and Alvaro Estevez.
The National Institutes of Health supported this research.
By Ethan Hauck
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